Rio Tinto Q3 iron ore shipments climb on rail haulage boost

(Adds details about copper and aluminium production, CEO quote, background on iron ore prices)

Oct (Shenzhen: 000069.SZ - news) 17 (Reuters) - Global miner Rio Tinto Ltd (Hanover: CRA1.HA - news) on Tuesday said third-quarter iron ore shipments from Australia rose 6 percent from a year ago, aided by improved rail capacity.

Rio Tinto, which competes with Vale SA and BHP Billiton Ltd in the seaborne-traded iron ore market, maintained its target to ship 330 million tonnes of the steel-making material in 2017.

Shipments from its Australian mines (Frankfurt: A0BLDP - news) totaled 85.8 million tonnes in the third quarter compared with 80.9 million in the same period a year ago, Rio Tinto said. UBS (LSE: 0QNR.L - news) had forecast third-quarter Australian shipments of 84.6 million tonnes.

“The business performed very well in the September quarter, with a strong quarterly production performance and a wave of productivity improvements embedded through our operations," Rio Tinto Chief Executive Jean-Sebastien Jacques said in a statement.

Iron ore has traded between $53 and $95 a tonne this year and currently stands at around $63. Australia’s Department of Industry, Innovation and Science expects iron ore prices to backtrack in the fourth quarter, leaving the full-year average at $64 a tonne.

Next (Frankfurt: 779551 - news) year’s forecast calls for iron ore prices to drop to $50 a tonne as China’s demand for imported ore moderates, according to the department.

In other minerals, mined copper production guidance for 2017 was cut to 460,000-480,000 tonnes from 500,000-550,000 tonnes announced earlier, owing to a delayed ramp-up of an extension work at the Escondida mine in Chile (Stuttgart: 704599.SG - news) , according to the company.

Rio Tinto stuck to a full-year target of producing between 3.5 million to 3.7 million tonnes of aluminium. (Reporting by Shashwat Pradhan in Bengaluru; editing by James Regan, G Crosse and Jonathan Oatis)